What's below is one of those diaries I half-finished and then let languish. I'm bringing it up now, because why not, it's beta, and I still have no idea where I want to go with it to finish it, so I'm publishing a half diary with a few trimmings.
ah, a meta diary I can sink my teeth into. Not in terms of "this is bad writing" - more "nom, nom, nom,...." Thanks to joe pittsburgh and shaun king, and all the neat comments that spurred this particular piece of spin you are about to become entangled with.
When we speak of journalism, we often include the assumption that someone who claims to call him or herself a journalist will be dedicated to writing just the facts, without fear or favor. This is probably the biggest lie that mass media has nurtured with us over generations. There may from time to time come that rarest of the breed - someone who delights in telling a story because they're fascinated by it, rather than because they have any opinions on the story. Another option, of course, is that you're entirely bored by all sides of a story and you're writing it up simply because it's your job. If you have an opinion, then what you're writing is an editorial, not a news story. Bullshit.
There is nothing I distrust more, when I read through whatever is current on Daily Kos, than a diary that appears to be written from a neutral, or impersonal, point of view. Perhaps because that's typical of your average Spam diary (which it is, at least of the English language ones), but I suspect not. I'm inclined to believe that a diary or article whose author is biased, and says so, (and actually has his or her biases correctly delineated, which is not always the case) may be committing a better kind of journalism than the commonly accepted definition. Most Daily Kos diaries are complex hybrids of straight reporting and editorializing - enough to drive most purists over one edge or another (depending on the category of purist).
And, today, they're screwing with the definition of "headline". And about time, too. There are headlines, and there are titles, and there are ledes, and there is "clickbait", and we've got an additional two or three lines to play with, that come up on a mouseover of the title of a diary. /end of original unfinished diary.
Huh. I'm trying to access the Image Library from this point in the page, and it's greyed out. Images can only be in the top half? What? I just went back up to the last image, clicked on it, then clicked off of it, and I have the Image Library option back again. One more Bug to report, I guess.
